Lallubhai Compound

Akshay Mahajan

The narrative of images in this section showcases the 16-building cluster at Lallubhai Compound in Mankhurd. A far-flung eastern suburb just within Mumbai’s city limits, the cluster rises ominously, each building separated from the other by a space that could accommodate only a single car. Dominos in a hellish mass of concrete, only four buildings have access to direct sunlight, on one side each. Housed in these rows of buildings are slum dwellers from all over Mumbai. Welcome to Mumbai’s slum resettlement housing projects.

Rehabilitation means very little here. The street resembles a mock copy of so many failed housing projects in the west—burning tyres, empty shops. Lallubhai is ghetto, home to people who are victims of the city’s new and uncertain urban realities—condemned, often without choice.